Morning is time to meet the intrepid Igor, a journalist at the Feral Tribune, and one of the editors of Fantom Slobode. Coffee and cigarettes…of course. And a quick but crucial lesson in BCS. Now I can not only recite poetry, I can also ask for prices, directions and important food items. Then we spent an hour at the FT office trying to print out Sem’s poems in Bosnian and directions to the pension in Sarajevo, all the time conversing about how the Communists sold out the Left, Croatian partisans in WWII, what the index of perceived corruption is in Croatia according to Transparency International (high), and what to call this language (hard). Igor is the one that contacted all the bookstores where we are performing, rounded up the poets, booked the hotels, and is making sure everyone writes up their experience. Thanks, Igor! Then off to the rental car to pick up our little red MANUAL—which means Cyn and Marika will be Driving Miss Daisy through the Balkans. Happy as clams, we head for Sarajevo. Cyn and I were there last year for the Sarajevo Jazz Fest, but it’s Marika’s first time. The road in Croatia was good, and filled with extortionate tolls, similar to Delaware. We spent the time rehearsing “What Will You Remember.” But when we crossed the border at Slavonski Brod…things changed. Roads in Bosnia are not so good. As we were informed by our friends in Sarajevo, ‘’What do you expect? Zagreb is just a suburb of Vienna….”

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